The purpose of having apprentices assigned to knights was intentionally done to ensure the kid's safety. Unfortunately, there was no such thing as a perfect plan.
The sheer amount of people willing to attack the Royal Family's carriage as it moved through the north was far more than they could have ever predicted. It threw the carefully planned strategies to the wind as it escalated into a full-blown battle.
The traveling party was merely lucky these people hadn't attacked before they picked up more knights at the Duke's Tower.
There was something particularly feral and desperate about a group of people throwing themselves entirely into a fight. Based on the way they gave off a sense of reckless abandon, it seemed they were okay with dying as long as they got their point across.
